


Growing Up

by SaritAadam



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Fluff, Panic Attacks, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28751943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaritAadam/pseuds/SaritAadam
Summary: A few scenes between Lodzhal and T’Lona during their childhood
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4
Collections: USS Tribble Threat





	Growing Up

They are six turning seven, and Lodzhal is climbing the ladder of their bunk-bed.

“You still not talking to me?”

“No,” T’Lona responds. She is sitting with her little legs against her chest, facing the wall, her back stubbornly turned to her brother.

Lodzhal sits behind her. “But I did nothing.”

“This is unfair that you will be bond with T’Ara but I will be stuck with Sahkt!”

The twins will have their kan-telan in a few months, and their grand-mother has announced with whom they will be bond. T’Lona has been mad in her room since.

“Grand-mother said T’Ara is a good mate for me because she follows me in the mud to find animals,” Lodzhal explains, deforming his grand-mother’s point. He finds it stupid. T’Lona never looks for insect with him, but he likes her better than T’Ara.

“This is a stupid reason!” she shoots in her knees.

“You are being emotional,” Lodzhal scolds.

“I did not take kahs-wan yet, this is forgivable.” T’Lona responds with the tone children quoting adults use.

Lodzhal nods. His sister’s logic is sound, sounder than his. Still, he doesn’t like when she is mad at him.

“I don’t want to marry T’Ara,” he says with his small voice. “You can if you want. I let you kill me during kal-if-fee.”

“Don’t be silly!” She turns around and puts a hand on Lodzhal’s arm. “I am not going to kill you! I don’t really care about T’Ara, I just don’t want to be with Sahkt.”

“Sahkt is nice.” Lodzhal doesn’t care about him more than he does for T’Ara, but he doesn’t understand his sister’s aversion to him.

“Well, you can marry him.” T’Lona considers Lodzhal a moment, a perfectly flawless plan forming in her six year-old’s head. “We could switch. You go to my koon-ut-kal-if-fee and I go to yours. We are almost identical, so no one will notice. Well, you are a little fatter, but if we put you in a tight dress, that should do it.”

Lodzhal nods happily to everything T’Lona is saying, not seeing any flaws in her reasoning.

_

They are nine, and they have stopped looking almost identical by now.

This is one of the many vacations they have at their grand-parents’ home. One of the many afternoon where their grand-mother imposes a logical and traditional Vulcan activity to spend their afternoon. This time, she manages to have one of her acquaintance to give the children a private calligraphy class.

Lodzhal hates it. He has found a’lazb eggs a few days ago, and according to his calculation they were supposed to hatch today. He has been hoping he could go see it, but instead he is stuck inside, with a man scolding him every minute because he can’t write straight, because he smudges the wet ink with the side of his hand, because he plays with his pen.

“You need to exercice focus and discipline.” The instructor is saying with a heavy voice. “Otherwise you will be emotionally compromise with ease. I am telling this for your own good.”

Lodzhal nods. This is nothing his regular instructors have not already told him. He has his hands under the table, hiding the fidget.

T’Lona observes the instructor with a frown.

She has been so excited, having private lessons with a famous calligrapher (she never heard about him, but for what other reason would her grand-mother be excited about his visit?), but she learned nothing; the man giving exercises she has already mastered because Lodzhal didn’t. She is bored.

She doesn’t see the logic in insisting that Lodzhal does art when he is clearly not interested. It is a waste of everyones time.

And now, the man is belittling Lodzhal.

She unties the ribbon holding her left sleeve up, keeping it from smudging the ink of her piece. With it, she pushes her inkwell over, thick black ink spreading all over the table.

At the sound of the droped bottle, the instructor turns his attention to T’Lona. He is quick to pull away all the important papers and tries to contain the damage with one poor tissue.

“I apologize, my sleeve untied itself.” She stands up hastily and grabs Lodzhal’s arm, forcing him to follow her. “Now that we do not have adequate material, my brother and I are leaving.”

T’Lona is talking so fast, and the instructor is so focus on cleaning the mess, that he understands what the child is saying once T’Lona and Lodzhal have ran out of the room.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in the desert behind the house, Lodzhal following insects and T’Lona doing calligraphy exercises in the sand.

_

They just turned eleven, and it is the first day of another vacation at their grand-parents’ house.

“This is just hair,” T’Lona tells Lodzhal.

“I know,” Lodzhal responds, still laying in his bed, looking at the ceiling. It is not that his hair was cut he is fundamentally angry about.

“Then stop being emotional.”

“I am not!” His little voice fills the room and he bits his lips, hopping he has not been heard from the living room. The last thing he wants is to get in trouble for not being asleep.

He turns toward his sister, who is laying in her bed against the opposite wall. She was as exciting as him about letting her hair grow out, and she must been as disappoint as him about being back to a bowl cut. But she doesn’t say anything about it. She has been on her PADD since they were send to bed.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

“I am looking for famous and logical Vulcan without bowl cut.”

“Are you finding any?” Lodzhal raises an eyebrow, doubtful.

“A lot.”

“Really?” Lodzhal’s eyes widen. He has spend the evening hearing about how a bowl cut is the only appropriate hair cut, and has been believing it already.

T’Lona turns to him, her triumphant smile lighted by her PADD. “The first I found was T’Pau. I could have stop there, really.”

“What do you want to do with those?”

“Show them to grand-mother to prove how wrong and illogical she was.”

“You should not tell her that,” Lodzhal winces. The idea of that confrontation is already making him nervous.

“I will not tell it like that. But she will get the message.” T’Lona turns her attention back to her PADD. “We should throw away her scissors.”

“The scissors did nothing to us.” Lodzhal readjusts the blanket over him. “I know a spot in the mountain where grand-mother will never think to look.”

They talks about the appropriate way to get rid of the scissors until they fall asleep, way pass their bedtime.

_

They are thirteen, and they are walking home from the learning pits.

“Sulen is now my mate,” T’Lona announced proudly. She does not fully understand the sexual implication of the term.

“Congratulation.” Lodzhal hopes he will hear his sister talk less about the other girl.

“There is no need for those. It is logical that she choose me. I win the poetry context against her ex girlfriend. And I am prettier.”

Lodzhal rolls his eyes. “Vanity is not logical.”

“What is not logical is to deny one’s own strength,” T’Lona stands a little straighter, with a tone saying she is right and can’t be argued with. “You should try sometimes.” She smiles, bringing the conversation back to her new girlfriend, “Sulen already said she will fight for me at my konn-ut-kal-if-fee.”

Lodzhal blinks. “You will not tell that to Sahkt, will you?”

“It is logical to let him know what to expect,” T’Lona responds with the same tone as before.

“But it is not really nice.” Lodzhal is looking at his feet. He has grown again, and his ankles are peaking from his pants. He should remedy to this.

“Did T’Ara tell you she found someone to fight you?” T’Lona asks, her voice softer.

Lodzhal nods. “I found it really unnecessary. We just have to break the tel bond before one of us reach pon farr.”

A silence welcome his statement. Lodzhal looks up at T’Lona, and her pensive expression. “You forgot we can break the bond, and you call yourself logical,” he rolls his eyes.

“I did not forget!” T’Lona replies, defensive, her cheeks a dark green. “And it is not about the fight itself. It is just… nice to know someone wants to do it for you.”

Lodzhal nods again. He wonders if someone would one day fight for him. He doubts it.

He listen to T’Lona talking about all of Sulen’s qualities. In a month you will listen to her talk about all of Sulen’s defaults.

_

They just turned fifteen, and T’Lona is guiding Lodzhal in the street of Shi’Karhr.

Lodzhal is trying to keep his breathing regular, to not spiral into a panic attack. He lets T’Lona hold his wrist and move him around, unable to properly understand his surrounding.

They reach their home, and T’Lona let go of Lodzhal. Discretely, she circles the house, looking through the windows to determine where are her parents. The teenagers should not be there at this hour, they have activities to attend before going home. But T’Lona will not let her brother in an unsafe place. They just have to not be notice by their parents. Opportunely, T’Lona is familiar with sneaking in and out the house.

The parents were in their office. That should be easy.

She returns to Lodzhal. “Hold on a little longer, Lodzhal.” She takes his wrist again and pulls him toward the door. “And walk exactly where I do.”

Lodzhal doesn’t have the strength to even nod, but she knows he will follow her advice.

The sound of the door sliding open is too faint to be heard from her parents’ office, and T’Lona drags Lodzhal inside. Looking around, checking that they were still unnoticed, she leads him to the stairs.

She did not plan on the fact that Lodzhal steps are heavier than hers, and he does not make any effort to conceal them. T’Lona hears one of her parents moving out of their office, but they are already upstairs.

She quietly closes Lodzhal’s door.

Lodzhal falls on his bed as he let the panic overtakes him.

T’Lona pull the cover over him, knowing the weight helps.

As his breath and heartbeat get out of control, Lodzhal focus on the noise T’Lona is making as she sits by his desk and play on her PADD. It helps ground him for a time. Until she receives a call.

T’Lona stands up, exits the room, crying “I am here!” to her parents as she gets down the stairs.

She returns after a long time, Lodzhal’s panic attack is already over. He sits up when he hears T’Lona coming inside.

She hands him a cup of tea. “Our instructors called to tell our parents we were gone. You will have to go see them, once you are feeling alright.”

Lodzhal takes the cup. “Thank you.” And he means it for more than the tea. T’Lona has no reason to help him when he loose control. But she does, only because she knows how tired he is of everyone’s judging glances, of the additional hours of meditation, of the adults telling him he needs to control his emotions better, to be a proper Vulcan. And she ends in trouble because of him.

“I apologize,” he continues. “You lost your way to sneak out of the house because of me.”

“I have others,” T’Lona reassures him.

Lodzhal takes a long sip of the Vulcan tea. He doesn’t fully appreciate the delicate taste, but feeling the warm liquid in his throat grounds him.

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

Lodzhal nods and T’Lona sits on the bed.

They spend a long moment next to each other in silence.

_

They are seventeen, turning eighteen, and it is the last summer of their childhood.

Right now, they are at their grand-parents house, like any summer. But tonight, they will go back to their home and pack for the university. They were both excited for it. Excited to not be children anymore. T’Lona already warned her grand-mother that next time she will visit, she will not accept to sleep in the children room.

Indeed, the room seems a little small for the two teenagers, as they sit on Lodzhal’s bed. T’Lona is braiding his hair.

“You need to learn how to do your hair now,” she tells him.

“I know how to braid my hair.”

“You know two styles. You will quickly be bored with your hair.”

Lodzhal doesn’t responds. She is right, of course. But Lodzhal knows they will see each other often enough that she will continue to do his hair regularly.

Otherwise, he’ll have to cut it.

“Do you know where you are going to live?” Lodzhal asks.

“I have a room in a house with four other students,” T’Lona replies matter-of-factly.

“They didn’t give you any other information?”

“You should be concern about yourself.”

“I have no reason to. I am going to a renowned school, not that far from home. I should be safe and should learn fascinating facts.” Lodzhal states, enumerating everything T’Lona should also encounter, but with an art school and not the Vulcan Science Academy. He fidgets with his blanket.

T’Lona rolls her eyes as she finishes her braiding. “Would it not be better to be impatient and joyful about what is to come, instead of being stressed?”

“Stress is a natural response and allow us to be prepared to bad situation.”

“But it is illogical right now, as we can not change anything.”

Lodzhal fondly rolls his eyes. His sister is as logical as ever. “What thing to comes are you impatient about?” he asks her.

They spend the rest of the afternoon on the small bed, T’Lona telling all the amazing and perfect project she will do once at the university, Lodzhal nodding to everything she says.


End file.
